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Elections in Brunant
There are three types of elections in Brunant. These include general elections for the House of Representatives, European Parliament elections and municipal elections. Formerly, there were also elections for the Senate and the office of President. Voters Voting is open to any Brunanter citizen over the age of eighteen. Levels of election European Parliament In the European elections, Brunant is a constituency of the European Parliament, currently represented by six MEPs. It covers the member state of Brunant. Direct elections have taken place since Brunant's accession to the European Union in 1982. The elections use the D'Hondt method with an open list. These elections are the only ones with nationwide lists, as congressional elections use parish lists. Congress Before 2017 Until 2017, Brunant elected a bicameral legislature, the Congress, which consisted of: *The House of Representatives (lower house) consisted of 100 members (representatives), each elected for a four year-term by proportional representation *The Senate (upper house) consisted of 24 members (senators), each elected for a four year-term by instant-runoff voting Each house used a different electoral system. While the lower house intended to be the voice of the people, the upper house was the voice of the parishes. Members of both houses, however, were elected by Brunanter citizens. Since 2017 The 2017 general election was the first general election were no senators were elected, marking the first time since the 1882 election no Senate election took place. Brunant's upper house, the Senate, was abolished following the 2017 election. The Congress was transformed to a unicameral legislature, consisting of only the House of Representatives. House of Representatives Until 1998, there were 12 constituencies coinciding with the 12 parishes. The 1998 general election was the first general election with nationwide lists. Lists may have an amount of candidates anywhere between one and 33. For example, the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats both submitted lists with 25 candidates in the 2017 general election, but had the possibility to add another 8 candidates to their lists to achieve the maximum allowed. A citizen votes for any three candidates on the ballot, and these votes apply to both the candidate and the list that they have voted for. Brunant uses a proportional representation system using open party lists. The process is rather simple. After the completion of the voting, the candidates on each list are re-ordered in order of how many votes that the candidates achieved. Then, lists that achieved less than 3% of the vote in a parish are disqualified, which is the election threshold. After this is done, the D'Hondt method is used to decide how many seats each list should receive. Representatives on the list (now re-ordered) become official representatives up until the amount of seats that their list was given after the elections. Senate Until this institution's abolition in 2017, there were two senators for each parish. The senators for each parish were elected by the instant-runoff voting method (alternative vote). If one wanted to be a candidate for the Senate, he had to collect a certain number of signatures within the parish and had to submit them to the administrative government of the parish. Only signatures from residents of that parish were counted. The number of signatures required varied between the parishes. After submitting the signatures, a candidate was put on the ballot. On election day, a voter ordered as many candidates as they liked in preferential order. Two candidates had to have a majority of votes at the end of voting, but if there was no majority in the first round, the candidate with the least votes was eliminated and his votes were redistributed according to their second choices. If a ballot had no second choice, the ballot was eliminated. This was repeated until two candidate had a majority of votes, or there were two candidates remaining, resulting in these candidates becoming the senators of the parish they ran for. President The President (when the office existed) was elected by the Instant Runoff Voting method (Alternative Vote) nationally. After submitting the number of signatures equivalent to one one hundredth of the population of Brunant, a candidate will be put on the ballot. On election day, a voter will order as many candidates as they would like in preferential order. If no candidate has a majority of votes at the end of voting, the candidate with the least votes it eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to their second choice. If a ballot has no second choice, the ballot is eliminated. This is repeated until a candidate has a majority of votes, or there are two candidates remaining, in which case the candidate with the most votes becomes the President of Brunant. Municipal elections Municipal elections in Brunant happen every four years and varies among each municipality. Cities, towns and villages elect a mayor and a council, while localities generally elect an independent mayor. Parties represented in councils have received at least 5% of the vote, which is the minimum cutoff. In municipal elections, seats in town and city councils are distributed by population. Villages of under 1,000 people have 3 seats in the council, all the way up to those over 100,001 people or more, who get 24. Referendums Category:Elections